Between Worlds
by Tzapporah
Summary: Eragon and Saphira mysteriously vanish in the midst of battle. A few hours later they return, looking older and accompanied by two mysterious young people. Where did they go? What happened? Who are these two strangers that are strangely close to the Dragonrider?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Well, gonna start the big one here. This takes place partway through Inheritance...primarily because that's how much of the cycle I've read. Please don't kill me for it, but I got distracted by a lot of things. **

**This is going to be a big ol' crossover, incorporating the Eragonverse, the Dragonriders of Pern, R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms characters (Namely Drizzt, Cattie-brie, Cadderly, and Danica), and the Warlock of Gramaraye series by Christopher Stasheff. Yes, I do have a good way to tie these all together that actually makes sense.**

**Lil' Line O' Litiguous Lard: I own none of the material of these various universes. I will have a couple OC's in this, but beyond that...**

**I'm starting with a short-ish intro chapter here, hope you guys enjoy. **

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**Chapter 1: Disappearance and Return**

A roar ripped through the battlefield, causing the heads of many Varden to snap upward.

_That's our cue, Saphira_, said Eragon to his dragon as he dispatched two imperial soldiers. Less than ten seconds and a series of elfin-agility-enhanced acrobatics later, he was astride her and taking off. He always tried to be useful in the battles, but in this situation, his responsibilities were clear. _Thorn and Murtaugh are our problem._

The approaching clash of the two dragons would have been mesmerizing to any but the two armies currently locked in combat below. The Varden were too experienced to allow themselves to be long-distracted. Thorn was a rare and never-welcome sight in the battle, but they knew he was manageable if Eragon was there. As such, it was only a few dozen that saw what came next.

Saphira roared and all but rammed into Thorn. Eragon and Murtaugh's blades met with an almighty *CLANG.* It was a frenzy of flapping wings, raking claws, and sparks from swords. A red and blue clash of titans. In the midst of the chaos, Murtaugh began to chant a spell in the Ancient Language. Eragon's eyes widened. He _knew_ that spell, but what did Murtaugh think he could accomplish with it? What was he going to use it on? He didn't have time to contemplate it as he and Saphira had to react to an agile corkscrew maneuver from Thorn. Murtaugh took advantage of this distraction to simply reach out and touch Eragon's shoulder as he flew overhead, uttering the final syllable of the spell he'd been chanting.

That was when the world exploded.

* * *

The explosion and subsequent shockwave managed to make even the most experience veterans glance upwards. What they saw shocked the imperial troops and froze the blood of the Varden. There was no trace of the blue dragon and her rider, and the red pair was dropping from the sky.

Nasuada's eyes quickly shifted to the nearest elf, Arya, for an explanation. The look of shock and pain on the elf's face was definitely _not_ a good sign. "Arya, what was that?" she snapped.

She somewhat regretted her sharp tone, but it seemed to have done the trick. "That was the transport spell…the same one I used to send Saphira's egg to Brom. To send something as big as a dragon and their rider…How could they do that?"

She didn't need to vocalize the rest of her response. Nasuada understood enough about magic to realize that the life force of a great number of people had gone into the execution of that spell. She gulped at the enormity of the act. "How far?"

The elf turned haunted eyes on the Varden leader, "I can't tell…the link was completely severed. I've never experienced anything like it."

"Do you think they're…" she let the question hang in the air.

Arya slowly shook her head. "No, I would've been able to sense that, even if it were instantaneous. I believe he is still alive, although he may be incapacitated."

Right then, Thorn's wings spread to break his and Murtaugh's plummeting descent. The red dragon looked utterly exhausted as it glided over to and half crashed into a hill at the rear of the imperial forces. At least there was one upside to all this, Thorn and Murtaugh were out of the fight as well.

Nasuada wasted no more time, "Messengers, hear my words and spread them: Eragon Shadeslayer is alive. The red dragon is out of this battle. We will fight on, and we will win. FOR THE VARDEN!" Not her most eloquent of speeches, but to the point and should do the trick. She had faith in her people, and she had let them know that.

* * *

Two hours of bitter fighting later, night began to fall. The stars twinkled in a mocking counterpoint to the grisly battle slowly abating below. The Varden had taken Nasuada's advice to heart. Belief in Eragon's survival only changed their reasoning and not their ferocity. Those that believed fought with the faith in their Shadeslayer and the confidence that the red dragon and rider were out of the fight; those that did not attacked in vengeance.

A few of the elves had attempted, separately and together, to scry Eragon. Arya had told Nasuada to be heartened by their lack of success. Eragon's anti-scrying pendant could only work when he was alive. Nasuada artfully rephrased it as, "the elves used magical means and were able to determine that he was alive, but not yet his location," and used her spy network to disseminate the information as a morale-boosting rumor through the camp. Let them sleep at least a little easier tonight.

* * *

Three hours later, the Varden camp had settled down to an uneasy sleep. A puff of freezing-cold air was all that announced the arrival of a large creature with three passengers above the recent battlefield. The creature quietly hovered for a moment before gliding unobserved by both magical and non-magical sentries toward the rear of the Varden encampment. The creature landed with practiced silence and discharged the three passengers. As if this wasn't strange enough, all the trio did was lie against the creature and fall asleep.

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**Well, hope you guys like it, I don't normally intend to jump around as often as I did in this chapter. Yes, what exactly happened is supposed to be a mystery, as are the identities of the two people with Eragon.**

**Review to let me know what you think!**

**Tzapporah signing off.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey look! A chapter! This one's not been working well for me. I'm sure once I get some momentum going on it, it'll come faster, but for now... Anyway. Here's the chapter.**

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**Chapter 2: A Gathering of Thoughts**

Harkle Harpell, coughing in the rubble that was once his small stand-alone workshop, picked himself up from the ground. "Well, that was unexpected…" he muttered to himself as he gazed bemusedly at the wreckage.

It's not that he was unused to explosions or buildings being reduced to rubble—similar things happened almost daily in Longsaddle—but this particular spell was not..._did_ not behave that way. _Fog of Fate_ was a gentle transport of the caster and his focus to where he most needed to go. It did _not_ violently transport something _else_ to the caster's location, and the circular wreckage pattern clearly told him that something too large for the space inside his little workshop had materialized and the universe had tried to make room for it. He squinted thorough the cloud of dust to see if he could find out just what that thing was. He nearly tripped backwards over the remains of a chair when the settling dust revealed the form of a huge Blue Dragon!

"Meep! Let's see, Blue…evil…lightning breath…" he mumbled to himself, scrambling for spell components that would allow him to survive an encounter with such a beast, which would likely be very unhappy when it woke up. He'd already cast _Protection from Evil_, and was in the middle of casting a _Protection from Electricity_, when a distinctly non-draconic groan nearly distracted him enough to not complete his spell.

After sending a quick _Message_ to his kin in Longsaddle, he began to creep slowly towards the prone dragon. He nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the beast's wings slid down to reveal an armored humanoid figure slumped astride the creature on a saddle. The figure was slowly stirring and letting out the occasional groan.

Keeping a wary eye on the still-unconscious dragon, and readying a quick _Dimension Door_ in case the creature stirred, Harkle approached the figure. "Um…excuse me…are you alright?"

The figure was painfully raising itself upright and shaking its helmeted head as if to clear it. "Wha—? What happ'ned?" slurred out a groggy male-sounding voice.

"I think we might've had a little spell misfire…" Harkle began, only to be waved to silence by one hand the figure while he clutched his head with the other.

"Wai'. M' ears 'r ringin'. Lemme get my helmet off…" The words became less slurred the more he spoke. When he suited his actions to his words, Harkle was a bit surprised to see that the removed headgear revealed a very young-looking Elven face. "There. That's better, now what…" he froze, taking in his surroundings for the first time. His voice took on an edge as he looked back at Harkle with a hard look in his eyes. "Who are you and where am I?"

Harkle found himself riveted by the young man's gaze, unable even to glance at the dragon he was still astride. "I'm Harkle Harpell, and you are in Longsaddle. I—"

"Do you work for Gallbatorix?" The Elf cut off the wizard's next sentence.

"Who?" Harkle asked, complete confusion showing in both his voice and his face.

The young elf's eyes widened in surprise at this response, only to narrow suspiciously afterwards. Harkle felt a light nudge at the back of his consciousness. The guy was a psionic! He did a rapid mental calculation and decided to let the probing mind at least see the genuine confusion and lack of recognition he had for the name. After a second or two, the rider's eyes widened again. "You…you really don't know." He closed his eyes for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration, and when he opened them again, they were filled with confusion tinged with fear and his next words were filled with dread:

"I'm not in Alagaesia anymore, am I?"

* * *

Eragon was woken from his slumber by the light brush of Arya's seeking mind. He had expected her to be the first to find him upon his return; he just wished he was better prepared for the encounter. Oh, he'd taken a good long while predicting, strategizing and planning, but he doubted an eternity would have been long enough. She was still such a mystery to him; so much of it boiled down to how far-fetched of a story she would believe…and how accurate he'd been in timing his return.

Over the next few minutes Eragon felt a half-dozen more telepathic sonar-sweeps pass over him; three were from Arya, two from Blödhgarm, and one, surprisingly, from Angela. He felt a small rush of satisfaction._ They can't sense me! I can sense them easily, but they can't get at me. Hah, and Glaedr said he didn't think it'd work._

One of the subsequent sweeps had woken the twins at his sides. U'Osu_,_ came the cautious female voice of Delsia in his head, _are…are those friendly?_

_Yes, they're friendly,_ Eragon replied with an internal wince, _but I doubt that they're happy right now._

_Are you telling us that our _Coronal_ is afraid of a scolding?_ Teased the irrepressible Jengon.

_Shut it_, _smartass. _Eragon thought back with mild annoyance, _You know perfectly well how precarious the next few hours are going to be, or did you forget the reason we decided to hide ourselves and sleep last night rather than flying right into camp?_

_Riight. We "didn't know how long you'd been gone and wanted to play it safe" and "needed to be well-rested for the inevitably long debriefing session" Yup, I remember the excuses._ The youth 'pathed back.

Eragon didn't dignify the imp's needling with a response; Arya had gotten close enough for him to sense her physical presence.

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**A/N: Still kinda short-ish, I know. But both sections felt right to end where they did. As a note, I do intend to continue in this sort of format. For each chapter, the first part'll be a chronicle of what happened while he was gone and the second will be a short bit of what's happening at the Varden camp now that he's back. **

**Review Responses:**

**Raven Salazar Potter-Black: Sorry it took me so long, hopefully your excitement is justified...**

**Araytigre: Hehe, I think you'll like where I plan to take it...my only issue is getting it there.**

**Dice: Thanks for reviewing.**

**Tzapporah signing off!**

**P.S. MOAR REVIEWS!**


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